Date: Fri 10-Apr-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: MICHEL

Quick Words:

history-reenactment-revolution

Full Text:

At The Middle School-- Reenactors Stress The Reality, Not The Romance, Of

History

(with cuts)

BY MICHELE HOGAN

Imagine a world where witchcraft is real. Depression is caused by black bile;

bad temper by yellow bile; and there are miraculous concoctions like a

cathartic solution of Epsom salts for their cure.

Half of your family might die from war, disease, or famine.

You share a tent the size of a modern-day pup tent with five other men. You

wear the same clothes for six months straight while digging ditches, preparing

for battle, and an occasional blood letting.

When you get hungry, you hope that the State of Connecticut marches some

livestock to your camp so you can butcher it and have your ration. Most of

your meat is green from bacteria, and salty.

Sometimes you pull bugs out of your food before you eat it. Sometimes you're

so hungry, you eat the bugs too.

You might bathe once or twice in your life, if at all.

The Fifth Connecticut Regiment recently reenacted life in Revolutionary

America, showing the students at the Newtown Middle School what daily life

meant to people who lived at that time.

Students visited an army camp, learned about clothing, food preservation,

medicine and religion and saw a battle enactment, including the firing of guns

(blanks).

Newtown resident Mike Filler spoke to the gathered students about religion. He

explained that religion was not something someone chose to believe or not to

believe, it was "so solid in your thinking. It was the way of the world. There

were no accidents. Life was caused by the hand of God."

He asked the students how many of them had attended church last Sunday. He

said that "if you didn't, you would have been visited by the constable."

Two hundred years ago, everyone in Newtown went to one of the two local

Newtown churches for two hours in the morning, followed by another two or

three hours after lunch.

Beyond their spiritual intent, church gatherings were also the way to find out

the news -- who was marrying who, and who had died.

Mr Filler went on to say that "the Puritans liked it when things were hard.

They were supposed to suffer. They worried if things were too good."

They also worried about witchcraft, and the dead coming back to punish them,

and came up with elaborate ways to prevent that.

Newtown students were fascinated with the performance and asked questions

about everything from how they kept the rats out of their food, to why the

girls had to wear restrictive clothing, like corsets or stays, from the age of

three.

Revolutionary surgeon Mr Wittkofski gently, yet firmly, held a boy's head

back, and peered in his mouth. Then he picked up his pliers and continued to

cradle the boy's head. The other kids drew close. What would he do? Although

the 20th century boy still has all his teeth, the students realized that an

18th century boy would have had a different experience.

The Fifth Connecticut Regiment takes its program throughout Connecticut,

bringing history to life and letting people catch a glimpse of the everyday

lives of people who lived in Revolutionary America.

Each year one Connecticut school is selected for the program. Newtown Middle

School students were thrilled that this year, it was their turn.